Resolution/aphorism for 2004:

Getting angry you hurt yourself,
sap your patience and give pleasure to
your detractors.

Here's a beautiful New Year's greeting from
Charles Bernstein, who has given us permission
to publish "Lost in Drowned Bliss",
one of a series of eleven short poems
called *World on Fire*, which will be published
later this month by *Nomados Press* in Vancouver.
It was also published in the Fall/Winter
2003 issue of*Golden Handcuffs Review*.


*****************************************

Lost In Drowned Bliss

"Things are what they are, but we are never
what we are," she said as she wrapped the sand-
wich in plastic and tucked away the tears
in a flute.

"No it's things. They hourly
change before our eyes while we stay stuck in
who we are and where we have been."

"Things are
solid; we stumble, unglue, recombine."

"Or what we see is no more a part of
us then the baby who beckons from the
forest: we splinter in the void to catch
the light, then hail the sparks as paradise."

-Charles Bernstein


*****************************************

Determined to teach myself Spanish by reading blogs.
So I start with guesswork.

Si pensamos realmente en lo que el zen podía ser en Estados Unidos, John Cage y Gertrude Stein son un zen más autético que Suzuki

::from Muledar, movedizo, muledar (Heriberto Yepez) {click here} ::

Does this mean something like: If we were really thinking of zen as it is practiced in the United States, John Cage and Gertrude Stein are more authentic than Suzuki.

*********

I'm going to gamble on this one too, from Never Neutral (Ernesto Priego) {click here}

Sin amor, el hombre está perdido.
-Carl Seeling

How about: "Without love, man is lost"

Notebook: 4/29/84

horse (harrow, stood) stem (lecture,
call, lake) callous (list, stitch)
time (immense, immeasurable) figure
(route, exclaim, esteem, bother, other,
bring, allow) surge (before,
narrows, sweet, limits, holds, one,
once, curtail, is, so, continues,
useful, draft, hither, refer, taste,
equals, worthy, tithe, breadth, pleasure,
category, settles, tease, toes,
debt, turn, tomorrow, warm,
selects, reads, notes, added, brush,
push, seem, his, search, uplift,
mistake, decision, infringe, feelings,
intrude, teeth, sort, roast, travel,
wither, tryst, yelps, strum, swum, unless,
furthers, tops, span, achieve, awkward,
wayward, meaning, shifts, construction,
traced, deliver, room, sways, isotope,
unites, tests, creation) conception
(cool, outward, loll, volume, pity,
swarm, river, tips, spoke, opportune,
bravura, sparks, viccisitude, travels, veers,
something, effronts, sturs, roars, such,
change, achors, another, challenge, or,
secure, quest, station, disappear, loud,
lowers, sleep, thought, reception, tone,
need, eddies press, shaped, conquer,
identity, conch, perception, pest)
past (asked, stormy, pirouette, choked,
tasted, etiquette, positive, slips, between,
around, beset, bet, bereave, viewpoint,
redict, dictate, delete, detain,
detour, dirty, corner, career,
culture, until)

January 1st, 2004
12:57 pm
25,000th visit to ::fait accompli::
since 5/24/03
referred by Brand New Insects(Shanna Compton)

also
38, 610 page views
**
On the other hand, men are obsessed with rankings
which, while having some interest,
ruins a lot of things, and could,
if some things don't vastly improve,
ruin everything.


*

::fait accompli's:: 1st birthday
coming soon: 2/11/04

When one door of happiness closes,
another opens; but often we look
so long at the closed door that
we do not see the one
which has been opened for us.
-Hellen Keller {click here}

It's time for the countdown.

Thinking about so many shared
moments with blogging friends
in 2003.

To them, and my many *fait accompli*
readers

Happy New Year!

Charles Baudelaire

*A Wag*

The New Year's Day upheaval was at its height- a chaos of mud
and snow churned up by a thousand carriages; a glitter of toys and
sweetmeats; a swarm of selfish greeds and heartaches- the officialized
delirium of a great metropolis, calculated to unbalance the sanest
loner's mind.

In all this uproar and pandemonium a donkey came trotting briskly
along; egged on by a lout wielding his whip.

As the donkey turned the corner of the pavement, a well-turned-out
gent, immaculately gloved and groomed and cruelly cravated,
encased in his brand-new outfit, bowed with great ceremony towards
the humble creature and said, as he raised his hat, "Here's wishing
you a Prosperous and Happy New Year!" Then he turned towards
his cronies with a fatuous grin on his face, as if inviting them to add
thier approval to his self-satisfaction.

The donkey took no notice of this foppish wag, and went galloping
along to wherever his business called him

As for me, I was suddenly filled with uncontrollable rage against
that superlative idiot, who struck me as the incarnation of the French
mentality.

[1862]

Baudelaire
The Poems in Prose
translated by Francis Scarfe
Anvil
London, 1989

Paging through Baudelaire's
letters I found two types.
Most were written to his
mother to beg for money.
In the others he complains about
boredom. He's only happy once:
when he tells his mother about
the publication of *Fleurs
du mal.*

Asking myself what the difference is
between writing and "just thinking."

****

The hardest thing for the group mind to remember
that the individual mind can never forget is:
writing is not just a contest
(series of evaluational summaries:
books, readings,
reviews, awards.)

****

It's impossible to think for long
in a staight line.
Feelings are the drops,
curves and long ascents
on this rollercoaster
called lilfe.

****

Overlap (Drew Gardner)
{click here}
suggests some new year's
resolutions for the heavyweights.

Notebook: May 17, 1991

1.

On a stage where each one makes a final appearance
(A smile, a bow and another document)
Absence is presence and God is a fool-
Because if you feel for a wall and nothing is there
No one is there and you'll doubt yourself
And it makes me sigh that even my own language
Is foreign to me and tastes better that way.
Don't be superhuman, don't even shrug your shoulders
In the face of pain- still it's too early to get up
Read but stop reading, write but stop writing,
Speak but stop speaking. This, in fact, is the only way
You can hear anything at all. By the way,
Where's my hairbrush?- I want to know because I don't have one
And want to borrow yours.

Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:38:24 EST
From: Laura Elrick
Subject: Alan Davies and Tom Orange in NYC

SEGUE READING SERIES AT THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB

We are very disappointed to announce that Jeff Derksen, who had been
scheduled to read, will not be able to make it on Jan 3. However, the fantastic Alan
Davies will be reading with Tom Orange. Please come out and join us!

January 3: Alan Davies and Tom Orange

Alan Davies is author of many works including the poetry books Rave (Roof,
1994), Candor (O Books, 1990), Name (This, 1986) and Active 24 Hours (Roof).
Recent chapbooks include Sei Shonagon (Hole, 1995), and an untitled collaboration
with the photographer M. M. Winterford (Zasterle, 1994). Signage, a
collection of writings on and about poetry and poets was published in 1986 by Roof.
Originally from Canada, Davies has lived in Boston and is currently living in New
York.

Tom Orange co-curates the "in your ear" reading series at the District of
Columbia Arts Center. He maintains and edits the dcpoetry.com Website and
anthologies, and he teaches periodically in the English Department at Georgetown
University.

Notebook: 5/17/91

2.

Now that I've been barely able to stop
Things move with a start that smiles forbiddingly.
Don't disagree with yourselves
You have throats and necks
And decibels of silence no one can even save.
I yearn you in replicas
I take thousands of socks and heave
them at your eyeglasses
No refrain. No butter, either, in the urn,
No anxieties about people's atttudes,
No getting left out either. Sorry
My breath smells so bad. Sorry
I forgot your name and even what you said-
Forgive me- so long ago- embarassment
Slaps me around all day. Take the bus,
Or at least paste the ticket
On a piece of paper this year.
Ay caramba!
(If you want to understand this,
Don't read it.)

Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year in Many Languages {click here}


Happy Chanukah in Many Languages {click here}


Holiday Good Wishes in Arabic {click here}

Center for
Multicultural And Gender Studies
Holiday Information Page {click here}

2004 resolution number one: learn to appreciate
insults, especially poets' snobbery: after all,
what happens? You get pissed off and forget
about your *real* worries.

Lost In Thought

"This prediliction for getting lost, this
was the sign beginning with which
all possibility opened."
Jean Fremon
*Distant Noise* (Avec)


The arcades, so many doors.
Images calling to me from behind those doors.
The increasing impersonality of stores-
Starbucks' tendency to offer an identical
experience everywhere.
As if there were a conscious attempt
to eliminate the necessity of thought.
Thought gradually becoming equal to
obedience.
The impossibility of thought, the
erosion of thought.
The retreat from thought.
Essential uncontrollability of thought.
Emotional turmoil associated with thought.
Looking for thoughts behind those doors,
faces, faces in thought.
Thoughts going on behind the faces.
Faces as doors that open and close.
Closure of thought, essential
immovability of thought.

Hurrying for thought,
hurriedness of thought,
thoughts interfering with
other thoughts,
paradox of thought,
contradictions of thought.
Thought's eddying quality,
essential opacity
and permeability of thought.
Instability, transformability,
peculiarity, parodoxical
pettiness of thought,
thought's dangers,
passivity of thought.
Levels of thought,
simultaneities,
coincidences, thought
within thought, intellectual
bias of thought, thought's
cul-de-sacs, detours,
stereotypes, one-way-streets,
reproducibility,
identifiability,
transferability,
capability of condensation,
thought's tendency to
unearth and sustain origins.
Widening access to
thought, translation of
thought, thought's
chasms, divides, its
rhetorical treacheries,
hypocricies, tendency
towards illusion or
deception, thought's
limits, its divides, its
vulnerability to confusion,
misunderstanding,
distortion,
mystification,
obfuscation,
its secrets, its
isolated character,
thought's asocial
transgressions,
thought's earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions,
tectonic shifts,
unclassifiability,
enigmatic
discontinuities,
its essential
privacy, its
constant gnawing
appetite for continual
metamorphosis,
further
development,
its tendency
to seek momentum,
its desire for
progeny,
for history,
for remembrance,
insistence on
truth, in private
its public
insistence on
verifiabilty,
thought's
connectivity,
its desire
to
universalize,
efface
identity,
thought's
definability,
its chameleon-like
tendency to
adapt to its
formal
presentations,
its charm
and amiability
when it
needs to
pursuade
or seduce,
thought's
ability to
invent its
own vocabulary,
or improvise
a language
by means of
accessible
materials,
thoughts
lightness, its
capacity to
be held
due
to the lack
of necessity
for material
enclosure,
thought's
phoenix-like
tendency to
defy
its
containments
thought's
meteoric
rise, thoughts
sputtering
demise

"Redemption depends on the tiny fissure in the continuous catastrophe."

Walter Benjamin, *Central Park*
Volume 4 Selected Writings
Harvard UP/Belknap 2003

Notebook: May 17, 1991

3.

I'm trying to remember "not-remember"
But I don't know what it is.
For one thing it oozes but this isn't important
What is important won't tell you anyway.
Secret smile, laughter that doesn't get dressed,
Disappearing intentions that later your find hiding in the satisfactions
Of breakfast. But now I'm late, I'm not even gone yet,
I'm running in syllables that also don't matter
And nobody bothers to rub their shoulders once in awhile.
This hasn't occured to its own progenitor
Who insists on editorializing instead of writing that ending.
That's not what I meant. In the wink of an eyelid
Sombody has already explained it in raised eyebrows
While I am only trying to get understood.
What an understatement! As they say
The best understatement is no understatement at all.
But is that being nice?

Happy Holidays from
*fait accompli*


C
Pine cones
Silver balls
Yellow Bell
Green Light

H

Tinsel
Red Light

R

Tinsel
Yellow Light

I

Green Ball
Green Light

S

Silver Ball
Red Light

T
pine cones
Blue Light

M

Tinsel
Yellow Light

A
Red Bulb
Green Light

S

Yellow bulb
Blue Light

T

Blue Bulb
Yellow light


R

Tinsel rope
Male Surfer

E

Yellow Light
Female Surfer

E


Red Bulb
Yellow Bulb

Planter with Red Foil
Tinsel Rope

Red and Brown and Green Basket (Autumn colors)

Present (yellow paper)

Present (blue paper)

Present (blue paper)

Present (yellow paper)

present (blue paper)

present (yellow paper)

Ribbon and maracas
on lower shelf